Two Great Alphabet Writing Apps for Toddlers and Preschoolers: iWriteWords and Little Sky Writers

We have an Apple iPad and we are incorporating it into our home-preschooling one game at a time. Two games I have found to be great is iWriteWords and Little SkyWriters We bought the Handwriting edition of iWriteWords ($2.99) and the iPad app Sky ($1.99) and I love them because it fills a gap in what I've been teaching him at home

Elijah has this great wipe-clean book called Learn to Write your Letters ABC (it's in the Amazon list to the right) and we write the alphabet upper- and lower-case everyday. However, I'm afraid of over-correcting, creating frustration, and taking his enthusiasm for it down to nil. With both of these apps, he must follow the letter correctly, lifting his finger where he should and finishing the letter correctly. And they're still fun.

Little Sky Writers is a simpler app. Once I showed Elijah how to do it, he liked guiding the airplane. I liked that he had a point to reach, and a check to know he'd done it correctly. By pressing the alphabet icon, I was able to see how many he'd gotten correct after he was done, upper- and lower-case. And he loved the voice and the sound effects. My only wish was that there was some kind of "Great job!" at the end of each letter, but that's just me.

iWriteWords is a fantastic app for the price. I like how you can make the letters bigger for little fingers. Elijah understood this one right away and I was able to tell him "Touch the four" if he didn't finish the letter correctly, and he understands that better than "Go to the end." And you can re-play their handiwork - watch it and enjoy. But they made it a little too fun to mess up the letter, so I know when to take it away because I hear the squeaky noise and giggles repeatedly.

These apps were good for my Elijah with the speech delay because I was able to have him repeat words that the man in Sky Writers said or the words the lady said in iWriteWords. He also must tell me which one he wants by saying "I want -" to first get the app, and again for the features in the game. And if he does a good job, I encourage him to say "yay!" and pretty soon, he's engaging in spontaneous speech.

There's another review with a video for Little Sky Writers here by Best iPad Hacks. The iPhone Mom wrote a great review of iWriteWords here and if you search for it on youtube, you can watch kids play it. Both are well worth it in alphabet toddler game world.

Love,
Amanda & Cubs

Two for One, Practicing Lacing and Writing Letters

When Monica unexpectedly wakes up early from her nap, I need something for her to do so that she doesn't destroy what Elijah and I have started. Not easy. She used to do it to our train set up all the time!

This works. I punched holes in a paper and had her lace through a shoe lace. Voilà, we finished what we were doing and she was as happy as a clam.

Afterwards, I noticed it was photo paper and that if I wrote down the letter, I could erase mine and have Elijah trace the faint outline of the letter. He did a really good job and enjoyed it a lot. He was so excited, I didn't get to write down every letter beforehand and he did many letters all by himself.

I really liked this and I am going to do it again. I laced through the string that was on it and hung it on the refrigerator so everyone could see it. I'm glad he practiced writing his letters without a guide and I'm glad he was so excited to do it. For most of the day, he has walked by and looked at it, admiring his work. Very cute.

 It's a bit obvious which letters had a faint print and which didn't. However, I like it when he just takes the marker and takes charge of his learning.

With Monica climbing, she finds the paper on Jeremy's desk and printers and bends a lot of them, making the no longer useful for our business, but great for these type of activities. Now that I know I can draw, erase, and have Elijah trace, I'll have to think of new ways to do this.

Love,

Amanda & Cubs